ella-mentary, my dear watson - a y12 gyg thread

PLS good luck with English language im glad you are enjoying it - if my sixth form made me do maths i would be taking myself away from their student count (pun intended) akdjajan

THANK YOU, honestly at that point i thought i was going to have to move schools, but i suppose everything happens for a reason!! i wouldn't even have CONSIDERED it otherwise and here i am with it being my current favourite! i have no idea what year you are in, but what subjects do you take!

im going into year 10 so still got everything but the kitchen sink - maths, triple science, both english, spanish, history, film studies and drama

goodluck

5 A-levels, that's crazy! Good luck for this year, you sound super motivated already
If you're making a tag list feel free to tag me in!

you hate English Language yet you want to do them for A-levels? I sense the epitome of Stockholm syndrome. nah, I’m jk, and let me point out two things:
1) I’m also going to year 12 (irrelevant info yay)
2) this will be a hectic gyg

chapter one : thurs 19 aug 21
(i have not finished this update but i'll be back to edit it later!)
ok ok hello and welcome!! so i thought i should start this thread by talking about how i’m feeling about starting year 12 as a whole and my initial impressions on each subject so i can see how these opinions change throughout the year.
english language
you may have seen that my lowest grade was in english language, and you may have thought, why would you even consider taking it at a level? see, i would agree with you, because that's exactly what i thought, and i must say, i rarely enjoyed english language towards the end.

evidence of my dislike for the subject (twitter light mode purely for the screenshot, i’m not a heathen)
i mean, i tweeted very regularly about how much i DESPERATELY wanted it to all be over, counting down to my last ever english lesson. so if you told me 4 months ago that i’d be continuing it to A LEVEL, let alone ENJOYING IT, i’d actually have just laughed at you. but due to the fact literally all of my options clashed, i had to reconsider, and this was a choice between english language and physics in that option block, and i really did not want to do physics. so, english language it was. (i emailed my english teacher during this crisis who then rang me so we could discuss my options and talk about english language and she was incredibly reassuring and helpful so thank you to her, an absolute legend, i love her so much <3)
it really is quite different at a level, and for everything i’ve experienced of the course so far (not very much, but i’ve completed over a third of the seneca course and read through my textbook already) i have LOVED it, and i’d go as far as to say it’s my favourite subject out of my options, which is madness really, i would never have expected that i’d WANT to spend time on english language?

my monthly study time for each subject a/o thur 19 aug (15:17pm)
currently it’s my most studied subject this month (i know i haven’t studied much but it is only two days since i picked my options so shush) so it’s really going well and i think i’m going to love it in september, especially as i get along well with my teachers and i think my class will only have 5/6 people in it, which will be lovely!!
sociology
so, since sociology and product design clashed, i've been able to come to a compromise in which i do 2 lessons of sociology one week, and three the next, etc. i studied sociology independently for gcse and so they were pretty happy for me to do this as i had shown aptitude for the subject when it was self taught, i suppose.
product design
as with sociology, splitting time with this one. i did very well at gcse, but i need to keep up with my coursework this time around since i did all of mine the weekend before the due date... oops.
law
for law, a wonderful friend of mine has been kind enough to offer to teach me the course. we started working on it last year, and covered the content for one paper, but then i became sick, and we both had other things going on, so we should be restarting in september! i'll be taking my final a level law exam at the end of this school year to hopefully relieve the pressure of five a levels to that of four, so i really hope it goes well and that time is not too difficult to manage for it.
religious studies
religious studies was another new subject picked as a part of the clashing options fiasco, but i've enjoyed what i've covered so far! i think i'll enjoy it more when we are actually being taught it though.

year 12
so, starting year 12... insert many thoughts here later.

also, general ramblings
this is definitely too long of an update to maintain and every single year i promise myself that i'll post a full length update like this every week or so and yet i definitely never do and i have been reading other people's gyg threads from this year and shorter more frequent updates seem to work so i may take that tactic this time? and hope that i actually end up updating it more than a couple of times?

weekly reflection
okay this is something i definitely think i should include in my updates so i am including the title and maybe some reflecting but mainly just so i remember!!

qotd
q : what music are you listening to at the moment?
a : i think i've fallen very much back into my arctic monkeys phase so essentially tbhc and am on loop as of recently, and i say falling back into but they've been my most played artist at the end of the year for maybe 3/4 years running now?? so really it has just continued but i've listened more than normal over the last couple of weeks.

ella x

theres another ella on here about to do y12 lol

@ellaa01

honestly i'm hoping that this newfound love for the a level spec is beyond my attempts to make myself feel better about taking a subject I didn't originally want to do, so we'll see how that pans out. what subjects are you taking and how are you feeling about it? and thank you i hope it will be at least somewhat interesting!

also my first post has been flagged for moderation so i've just realised none of you can see it! so for now, I'll copy and paste it into here so you can see until it's been approved!

hello hello! welcome to my y12 gyg thread, i shall be updating shortly!

my name is ella (she/they), i'm autistic, i'm starting year 12 this september, and for someone attempting to juggle so many subjects, time management really is not my forte. at all. so the main purpose of this gyg thread is to hopefully make sure I manage my time well, or at least much better than my current track record...

gcses
these actually went pretty well, my attendance in year 11 was around 33% due to long term illness so despite being predicted straight 8s/9s, and knowing that in a "normal" year, i may have been able to have attained them, i am actually really proud of myself for getting what i did get!
maths : 9
product design : 9
french : 9 + distinction
history : 8
physics : 8
biology : 8
compsci : 8
sociology : 8
english lit : 7
chemistry : 7
psychology : 7
(and the english language grade (6 + merit) that we don't mention)

a levels
ok so my subjects... i had a little bit of a crisis when picking these because i was already set on my options, then all of them somehow managed to fall into the same option block at school? so i had to completely reconsider, but i think i might actually be happier with my new options!
aqa english language
ocr religious studies
aqa sociology
ocr law
aqa product design
+ an epq
in an ideal world i would love to get six A*s (well, who wouldn't?), but we will have to see how it goes and i will update you when i get the inevitable shock of how difficult a levels actually are

anyway!! I will shush now and put any future ramblings in an update! let me know if you have any interest in being tagged!!

ella x

I’m talking maths, physics and biology. I know the latter doesn’t have a strong link with a former, but truth be told, I don’t really know what I want to do in the future so I’m just taking the subjects I enjoy. Also, I don’t mean to pry but I’m curious, what is your reason and incentive to take 5 A-levels?

honestly not having them all in the same category as such should be fun and I'm very glad you get to take the subjects you enjoy most, that always seems to be best, i'm also a little unsure on what i want to do eventually, i'm thinking either law or something in government and politics? but both are very broad fields so i could not tell you in any more detail than that.

and ah yes, not prying at all! everyone seems to look at me like I'm mad when I say I'm doing five, but i think it's mainly the fact i just could not narrow down my subjects any further, and i enjoy having the wider range to focus on. i know universities only tend to make three grade offers and it doesn't make me any more favourable having more, but it's mainly the personal challenge of it! academia has really been my main pastime for as long as i can remember, and i don't enjoy not being busy at all, so additional academic commitments is usually my way of avoiding that. and really, if the workload is too much in practise, i can just drop one of them at any point, so we'll see how it goes first.

Also, you remind me of another tsr user

thank you laura!! i just really hope the motivation lasts at this point. i absolutely loved your gyg this year and i wish you the absolute best of luck at notts! congrats on the amazing grades too!! I'll definitely be sure to tag you, and i'd love to be tagged in your next thread!